


Going Down

by elizajane



Series: 25 Ways to Kiss a Naked Man [11]
Category: Eureka
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Anxiety, Blow Jobs, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-21
Updated: 2013-08-21
Packaged: 2017-12-23 21:13:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/931149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizajane/pseuds/elizajane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nathan doesn't know how to say <i>I want to but I'm scared I want to but you'll maybe hate me I want to but what if I start and I hurt you I want to but what if I can't?</i> [Nathan POV]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Going Down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tarlan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/gifts).



> This one is for reader Tarlan, who has read (and kudos-ed!) every one of the first ten installments. Having a fan does wonders for my authorial soul. I hope this bit lives up to your expectations!
> 
> In addition, shout-outs to AlanaRavynFenyx, kc922, SINslayer7, whimsicality, WindWolf, Wyndewalker, and everyone else who's been reading along and generously sharing kudos. I hope at some point y'all will take a moment to let me know what's moved you about the story in comments!
> 
>  **Warning** : I tagged this, but to elaborate: This fic describes Nathan's first relationship with a controlling asshole. He got out, and he's worked through a lot of it, but writing the back story still made me pissed off on his behalf. So. Do with that what you will.

Nathan remembers the first time he tried to go down on Tom, at some point in the spring semester of his junior year at M.I.T. How he’d felt Tom’s lengthier sexual history weighing down on him like those lead aprons they draped over you before putting you under the x-ray machine.

How Tom had grabbed his hair, had jerked unexpectedly, made Nathan feel clumsy, choked, vaguely _defiled_ and embarrassed that he felt any of those things. Like maybe he was a poor lover, a failure as a gay man – wasn't he supposed to _like_ this?

Tom had jerked him off, afterwards, true, but hadn't offered to reciprocate. Had never, in fact, gotten his mouth near Nathan's cock in the year and a half they’d been together.

Nathan never worked up the nerve to try again.

Tom hadn’t asked him to.

They’d been circling around one another for most of the year, ever since Nathan had been assigned to Tom’s discussion section of Theoretical Physics II. Tom had been an outrageous, goading flirt, though he let Nathan be the one to make the first unmistakable move: mustering up the courage to ask Tom out for drinks after class on a Friday afternoon, suggesting a place in the South End he hadn't actually been to but knew screamed Gay! in neon lights. He'd let the choice of venue say what he wasn't yet capable of voicing: _When you flirt with me I think maybe I'm beautiful in someone else's eyes, if not my own_ and _The fact you're not intimidated by me in class, the way so many of my professors and fellow students are, is a bigger fucking turn-on than I ever expected_. Not to mention _I can't stop staring at your ass_. Or _the way you move your hands in class is mesmerizing, and I really, really, really want those beautiful hands on me_.

He'd thought at the time that Tom's holding back, letting Nathan ask first, was an acknowledgment of their inequality as graduate student and undergrad, the fact that Tom would have partial say in Nathan's grades at the end of the semester. A few years after the relationship ended, Nathan was able to acknowledge that at least part of Tom's motivation had been less admirable: he liked the power imbalance, liked the fact that waiting for Nathan to ask underscored their unequal footing while simultaneously providing material evidence of non-coercion ( _He asked me out first, I wasn't pushing him to do anything he was uncomfortable with, I let him lead all the way_ ). Nathan even suspected, from the distance of Stanford and the perspective of healthier relationships, that sex – and specifically Tom's greater experience with sex – was a way for Tom to assert his superiority in a way he couldn't in the classroom.

Because in the classroom Nathan was the one with an edge, however slight. He was quicker to grasp the concepts, smoother in his attempts to relate them to practical application, more daring in his speculations. He was attracting notice beyond the department, beyond the university. PhD programs were competing for him on an international scale. Tom was good – brilliant, even – but he wasn't _that_ good.

So (and this is uncharitable, Nathan knows, but there are days when he feels uncharitable about the eighteen months of his life he spent as Tom's fuck buddy boyfriend fling) he should have gotten out, he knows that, should have dumped Tom's ass before the term ended. But it was hard, so hard, to let go of the fact that _someone had taken an interest in him_ and _thought he was sexy_ and _wasn't_ (he’d thought at the time) _intimidated by Nathan's smarts._

See, he'd been an isolated teenager. In part because his parents moved around a lot: Richard Stark was in the Foreign Service and his wife Adrienne, whom he'd met while stationed in Belgium, was kind and encouraging but herself a shy introvert who always struggled to put down roots in each new location. In part because he was mostly self- and tutor-taught: few schools could keep up with the work he wanted to do. And, frankly, the peers he did encounter did not inspire confidence: their preoccupations baffled him, their social energy overwhelmed him, and their dramas seemed petty when set alongside unlocking the mysteries of the universe.

So he'd kept to himself the first couple of years at M.I.T., spending most of his time around faculty rather than peers, immersed in his studies, pushing himself as hard and fast as resources allowed.

And then Tom.

Tom, who called him “Sparky,” in a teasing-not-teasing way. In a way that clearly conveyed _You might burn fast, but you won't burn long_. Who'd stand in Nathan's dorm room before a night out and pass judgments on Nathan's attire, pushing for tighter and thinner, who ribbed Nathan about the softness of his belly and hips and instituted daily visits to the campus gym, started casting a critical gaze over the food Nathan ordered at restaurants, or the second beer he called for during Thursday night trivia.

It wasn't until he'd had a few more casual relationships – a couple of men and one woman, a sweet and whip-smart geneticist who worked two labs down his third year at Stanford – that he started to realize not all partners judged what you ate, or evaluated how built you were.

Jordi, his rebound boyfriend, liked to have him over on the weekends and cook up risotto thick with cream and seafood, French pastry, and rich chocolate desserts – always urging second helpings and turning food into an erotic indulgence to be savored, not censored. Jordi had gone down on Nathan once or twice during the three months they were together, but Nathan had always been tense, and they'd never finished that way.

And Jordi – sensing, perhaps, Nathan's anxiety – had never pushed Nathan to do the same.

At the end of three months, Jordi had accepted a transfer to a lab in Sweden and they'd parted on amicable terms.

Susie the geneticist, herself a scant 5' 2” with lingering acne, was indifferent to his compulsive gym routine, and used to do her best to persuade him to have a lie-in on the mornings he stayed over, never offering a single disparaging word about his skin or his hair or his clothes or his upper-body strength.

Susie was the one who'd helped him discover he enjoyed, and was good at, going down on women – her folds a fascinating variety of hues in pink and purple and brown depending on mood, the tiny button of her clit leaping beneath his tongue as he sealed his lips around her and _sucked_ , slid his tongue down and deeper, reached around with his hands to cradle her hips, feel the muscles of her thighs contract around his cheeks and neck and over the back of his shoulders as she arched up to meet him.

Maybe he's just better at reading women? Alli certainly never had complaints.

At least not that kind.

Alli was the one who had, with patience and persistence, taught Nathan how to relax into her mouth, let her taste him with her tongue and lips and even, eventually, teeth. How to appreciate the warmth and softness of her nestled between his spread thighs, holding his balls gently, gently, in the palm of her hand, keeping the pressure tantalizingly light yet firm as she softly kissed and licked and nuzzled him to fullness before wrapping her hand around him and pushing him, pulling him, over the edge.

So it's not like he lacks, now, in know-how. And knowing what feels good from subjective experience always stood him in good stead with hand jobs, so _theoretically_ at least he should have the protocol down pat for a spectacularly hot and tender blow job.

Theoretically, there's absolutely nothing stopping him from blowing Jack's mind by way of his dick.

But the thing is, Nathan realizes – about two months after he and Jack first start the whatever-it-is they have – realizes he's been avoiding going down on Jack. He wants to – _God_ , he wants to – but the last three times when he's come close he freezes up at the last minute, backtracks and covers.

And Jack hasn't asked for it.

And Nathan doesn't know how to say _I want to but I'm scared I want to but you'll maybe hate me I want to but what if I start and I hurt you I want to but what if I can't?_

So he hasn’t. So far.

“Fuck, Jesus, _Nathan_ – !” Jack's naked under Nathan's hands, spread out on the bed with abandon. It's just after midnight – Nathan hadn't gotten away from work until after ten – and they're holed up in Jack's bedroom with Zoe out at a sleepover with a couple of friends from school. They haven't had a chance to even see each other for three days. With a rapidity that has left Nathan (and, he suspects, Jack) reeling from whiplash even seventy-two hours has become a nearly intolerable length of time to go between touches, however casual, and tastes, however brief.

Nathan licks kisses down the line of Jack's collarbone, noses his way through the sandy hair on Jack's chest to the dark burnt rose of Jack's left nipple, nips it, feels Jack arch and scrabble with his free hands at the sheets – “ _Please_ ,” Jack whispers.

“What do you want?” Nathan exhales the whisper across Jack's obviously-oversensitized skin. “What do you need?”

Jack had been asleep when S.A.R.A.H. let Nathan in (she has standing orders, now, to allow him entrance if his bio-scan clears), roused by the rustle and bump of Nathan making his way around the dimly lit bedroom and _en suite_ bath. When Nathan had come back from brushing his teeth and emptying his bladder, Jack had rolled over drowsily and reached for Nathan with an uncomplicated gesture of _want_ that caused something warm and dark and desirous to bloom in the pit of Nathan's stomach.

 _I'm_ so bad _at this_ , he wants to say. _Why do you want me? What do you see in me?_ He thinks he should be over this by now: Jack, rutting up against Nathan, pinning him to the wall of the community hall; Jack, coaxing Nathan up to this very bedroom, their first night together, asking for touch; Jack, in Nathan's office, shucking off his trousers and climbing into Jack's lap; Jack coming back again and again and again in dozens of ways saying _I want you I want you I want you._

“I want – I want – _God_ , anything, everything, I don't – Nathan – ”

“Okay, it's okay, just let me – ” Jack's more instinct than instruction, Nathan's starting to realize. He moves and touches and _does_ what feels good, what gets him responses that sound and feel positive. He asks with his hands, now, increasingly, more than with his words, quick to pick up tension in Nathan's shoulders or back, pulling back, dropping the motion, moving back to familiar ground. Pressing forward when Nathan urges him on.

Jack's also been … experimenting, for lack of a better word. Though hardly in the controlled sense Nathan would use the word in a professional context. Jack's been undeniably enthusiastic from the first night, and has managed to overcome Nathan's inner certainty that somehow it's all been a mistake. But Nathan's also observant, and he wasn't too caught up in his own fears and anxieties to miss how Jack had tested himself at first: kissing, touching, being touched, looking, being the object of Nathan's gaze – the question had been lurking in the back of his eyes, whether or how it was _different_ , whether or how he would _like_ it.

He had, and kept coming back for more, pushing into new terrain. By now, there wasn't a single plane of Nathan's body he hasn't touched and tasted, giving Nathan a whole new definition of “erogenous zone.” Not that he's any stranger to lingering, but he realizes under Jack's hands how much – since Tom – he's always been the one in control, setting the pace, never letting himself just sink into the experience of being, well, _loved_.

In all of his unloveable particulars.

All of which had led, inevitably if still shockingly, to last Wednesday night when Jack had kissed his way down Nathan's torso and simply _not stopped_.

Of course Nathan’s missed being sucked off. It's been over a year since he and Allison finally decided to call it quits, and for a while before that things had been pretty rocky – suffice to say sex other than a quick jerk-off in the shower or while Allison was away on business were about where his sex life had begun and ended for the better part of two years.

He'd missed the warmth of it, he realizes now, the heat of another body, the intimacy of another person, there, in _that_ moment, skin to skin. It's always been a shock to him, that anyone would ever be willing to make themselves so vulnerable in front of him. With him. _For_ him.

So yes, he'd missed it. But hasn't even thought to suggest it, ask for it. How can he, when he’s paralyzed at the thought of reciprocating in kind? To ask Jack to go down on him when he can’t return the favor turns him into an older, uglier version of Tom. A jerk without the excuse of youth to hide behind.

But Jack didn’t wait for him to ask: he just _did_.

So now Nathan figures he owes it to Jack – and yes, to himself – to work his shit out, to face his fears, whatever Beverly would call it. _Process_.

It’s been on his mind for the past two days, and now he’s about to take the notion for a test-run.

Nathan presses his face into the hollow of Jack's hip, acutely aware of Jack's dick, half hard already, laying close to Nathan's cheek. He breathes in the scent of Jack, musky and sharp with sweat from the day, but clean too like he's taken a shower before going to bed.

He breathes out again.

Jack's stilled beneath his hands, beneath the weight of Nathan pressed along the length of Jack's thigh and calf, ankle and foot. Nathan's still in his robe against the chill of the room, while Jack – as usual – is fully naked, exuding heat like he burns his own private sun deep inside.

Sometimes Nathan fancies he can see the glow.

A hand settles, open-palmed on the crown of Nathan's head, gentle, sloping a caress down to his nape, then around to cup his jaw, tilt his face up so Jack can see the look in his eyes.

“Okay?”

Nathan swallows. “May I – can I –”

“Yes.”

Nathan quirks a half smile. “You don't know what I'm going to say.”

Jack rolls his eyes. “Does it have to do with you? And me? And sex? And potentially you getting more naked? Because I could definitely get behind all of that.”

Nathan bows his head to press his lips into the crease of Jack's thigh, just at the line of his curling nest of pubic hair.

“I'd like to go down on you.”

There's a pause.

“And you think this is something you have to ask permission for why exactly?”

Nathan lifts his free shoulder in a shrug. “You might not like it.”

Jack frowns down at Nathan in puzzlement. “Um, no. I’m pretty sure I’ll like it. You. Me. Sex. Remember? And I happen to know I like blow jobs. I’m not a blow job virgin, you know. Abby and I were together for seventeen years.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve – ”

“Well I have.” Jack coughs. “If you could, um, be a bit – gentle? With the, um – ” he gestures, vaguely, into the air above his head, eyes no longer on Nathan’s face. “What I mean is, sometimes my balls get a bit – tender. So no – teeth, or, um – too much pressure. But – _fuck_ , Nathan. Why are we having this conversation? What makes you think I _wouldn’t_ want you to?”

He has a point, Nathan knows. The thing is, what he really meant was: “ _I_ might not like it.”

It comes out in a rush.

“Huh?” Jack’s head comes back up off his pillow, and he’s staring down at Nathan again, although Nathan’s avoiding his gaze.

“I have a – a thing.”

“A thing.” Jack repeats it back to him, his voice a study in neutrality.

“I – I haven’t had a great – I can’t be brilliant at everything, right? I’ve told this is one of those activities where my skills are seriously lacking.”

“What, have you bitten someone’s dick off?” Jack quips before he sees something in Nathan’s face that causes him to do an about face – “Oh, no, not funny, sorry. Bad joke. Forget I said that – Nathan. Jesus. I can’t even – who the fuck – ”

“Just – people.” Nathan doesn’t want to get into it; thinking about Tom in this context is likely to drain what courage he’s mustered. “Look, I don’t want to talk about it. The point is, I want to try this. But I don’t want you to – it seems unfair to – and then not be able to – ”

Jack’s hand is back on his head, tilting his head with a gentle nudge so their eyes were locked.

“You want to do this – give it a try?”

“Yes.” Nathan swallows again, around the tightness in his throat.

“Well then.” Jack says this like it’s self-evident. “If you still don’t like it, or don’t think you’re good at – whatever. If it’s a fuck-up for some reason, we’ll stop and do something we _know_ we like. It’s not like we’re lacking in those. Deal?”

Nathan smiles against Jack’s skin. “Deal.” Trust Jack to make it all sound fucking _simple_ when in Nathan’s head it’s anything but.

He takes a breath again, takes stock of where they are.

The bed is warm, the sheets and duvet disarranged. S.A.R.A.H. has kept the room warm enough that he’s not chilled, though wrapped in just Jack’s worn terrycloth robe, which has rucked up as he shifted down the bed; he can feel his dick pressed against the roughness of Jack’s hairy skin where Nathan is half straddling him.

Jack himself, as previously noted, is naked, inviting. Nathan _likes_ Jack’s body, he reminds himself. He’s beginning to think he might even _love_ Jack’s body.

Jack’s penis has retreated a little during their conversation, soft now against his belly, nestled at the seam of his thigh, a gorgeous pink-purple, a tracery of blue veins winding up the base, into the shaft.

Soft like this, Nathan thinks, he can almost imagine taking all of Jack into his mouth, holding him there, feeling his pulse beat strong and steady against the stretch of Nathan’s lips.

Feeling him fill Nathan up from the inside. Pushing him wider.

Something in Nathan’s belly stirs, and not in a nauseated way, he realizes, but in an _I might want that someday_ way. He shivers, running his right hand up the long stretch of Jack’s leg, calf to thigh to hip, tracing his fingers around the base of Jack’s cock.

Jack moans, shifts his hips a little, moving into the touch. Not urgently, not with any sense of demand – more of a – a _settling_ , like he’s clearing the way for what’s to come.

Nathan takes another breath and presses a kiss at the edge of Jack’s curls. He’s still rolled tight against Jack’s side, right arm slung across Jack’s thighs, hand curled in against Jack’s hip, holding him close. It’s him holding Jack there, he thinks, not Jack pushing him down, pulling him in. Neither of them are rushing, bullying, restless, hurrying.

He can take his time.

He’s got all night.

Another breath.

It’s Jack’s turn to shiver, as Nathan’s warm breath passes across his heated skin.

“Talk to me,” Nathan murmurs, needing to hear Jack’s voice, needing to remember where he is, who he’s with, what’s going on for Jack in there, inside his head, that was never, ever going on for Tom.

“I didn’t know if I’d like blowing you,” Jack says to the ceiling, his hands fluttering around Nathan’s head, moving across Nathan’s shoulder, up his own ribcage, back down across the knuckles of Nathan’s hand on his side. “I didn’t know, I mean, I’ve – _unh_ – it’s not like I haven’t, before, with Abby, with, before, but – _unnnh_ – not, you know I haven’t with a guy, before, and I thought to myself what if I don’t like the taste? or the smell? One girl I dated in college hated it, said no matter what I ate or how recently I’d showered I tasted sour, made her choke. I thought what if it’s that way with you? What if I can’t, and you think it’s you, something you’ve done – _ohGodNathan_ – ”

Jack’s groaning deep in his chest now, as Nathan lets himself explore, slowly, the way Allison used to do, blowing teasing breaths against him, holding his hips firm between her hands and under her body so he could push up against her without being afraid of hurting her.

He parts his lips and brushes his tongue against the base of Jack’s cock, which is filling again, lengthening, starting to stand out a deep ruddy red against the paleness of his belly.

Jack tastes of warm skin, of sleep, a faint afterscent of the lemongrass and lavender soap from the shower, and the seductive musk that fills Nathan’s nose, hits the back of his throat, makes his own body shudder in response.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Jack chokes out, twisting himself against the bedclothes, visibly holding his hips as still as he can so Nathan doesn’t startle. “ – but the point is – the point, _God_ , is that it was amazing, Nathan. All of you. Amazing. I – _please_ – I loved the softness of your skin and how hard you grew under my mouth, and getting to watch so close the colors change, and to taste and smell the tang that’s _you_ and _sex_ and – _fuck_ – ”

Nathan lets Jack’s voice wash over him as he mouths his way up the length of Jack’s shaft to where the deep purple of the head sits vulnerable below his bellybutton. Shifts his hand from Jack’s hip to Jack’s cock, to give himself more control, and presses his lips down and over, feeling Jack soft and hard against his tongue at the same time, feeling Jack shudder at the touch – a full-body shudder that starts and ends in the tightening muscles of Jack’s abdomen, where Nathan knows Jack’s orgasm is gathering.

Jack’s moved beyond words, but his body continues to speak, pushing up against Nathan, but not rough, not intrusive, hands on Nathan’s head but like a benediction, not a command.

It makes Nathan feel daring, makes it possible for him to sink a little deeper onto Jack, let Jack fill his mouth, bump against the back of his palate. He shifts his hand to pull Jack toward him, seals his lips just above where his thumb is pressed to the underside of Jack’s cock, and _sucks_.

Jack bucks up against his chest, a jerky, half-arrested motion, that Nathan can feel is still on some level attempting not to overwhelm him, not scare him away. He thinks he’s got things pretty well sorted now, and _humms_ his approval at the motion, rolling himself against Jack’s body, letting Jack feel the way Nathan’s own dick is responding in kind.

“ _God, Nathan – you can’t – I can’t – fuck –_ ” Jack’s scrabbling at Nathan’s shoulders, suddenly, and Nathan can feel the shuddering build of Jack’s orgasm start against the base of his hand. He pulls off, letting his hand take over, pulling, pulling, pulling in long sure strokes the way Jack likes, and before he can haul himself back up the bed to give Jack something solid to hold onto, to rut against, Jack’s coming, spilling over his hand, pooling on his own belly, leaking down between his thighs.

“Oh – _God_!”

“Hey, hey, hey – ” Nathan’s there, now, gathering Jack to him, clumsily, with his left arm, while his right hand keeps moving, slower now, pulling Jack through, making it last. “Hey, hey, shh – it’s okay, I got you, I’m right here.”

Jack gasps with something like relief and surprise, burying his face in the nape of Nathan’s neck, falling limp against Nathan’s side.

Nathan pulls at the hem of his robe to free a corner of the cloth, fumbles gently between them, mopping Jack up, shifting him away from the damp spot on the sheets.

Jack mumbles something ending in “ – you?” Nathan laughs, softly, and kisses his forehead. “S’okay. Let it go. You can have your way with me in the morning.”

 _MumbleMumble_ “ – already morning!”

“C’mere you,” Nathan settles back against the pillows, flips the covers over them both, “S.A.R.A.H., can you get the lights?”

“Certainly, Doctor Stark.” And the room goes black.

Jack’s asleep in a heartbeat or two. Nathan, still slightly wound, stares up into the shadows. He slides a hand down to his own penis, cups it gently in his palm to feel his own pulse there, strong and steady. He tugs once or twice, knowing he’d fall asleep faster post-orgasm. But this whole thing with Jack is too new, too raw, too fragile, he thinks, and his heart isn’t in it.

That’s not how he wants it to end, this night, so he turns his head to press his nose against Jack’s sandy hair, breathes in the scent of sex and sleep, and feels the tension in his muscles start to unravel.

In his sleep, Jack coughs slightly and shifts, throwing an overheated leg across Nathan’s hips. The pressure is perfect, reassuring, a promise: _in the morning, I’ll still be here_.

Maybe someday, he’ll find the words to tell Jack how different this time had been from his first.

Maybe someday, he’ll be able to open his mouth and say _you were the reason I wanted to try._

Maybe someday, he’ll find it hard to remember why it had been something to fear.

Maybe someday, he’ll know the sensation of Jack growing hard and long against the back of this throat, know how to swallow deep and keep on breathing.

Maybe someday – but it doesn’t have to be now.

**Author's Note:**

> Due to life events, this series will most likely be on hold until October. I hope this is a satisfying place to hit "pause"! I do have more written and will resume posting when we return from our travels and I've gotten reasonably caught up with my other responsibilities.
> 
> Oh, and I realized when I got to coding this section that I misspoke in a previous note: the "porn with plot" sections are not all in chronological order, so a couple of episodes alluded to in this fic will turn up in future segments.
> 
> I'll let y'all hope/speculate regarding which of those episodes they will be.


End file.
